POWAY  Signs clustered along the shoulders of state Route 67 warn of the peril of reckless driving, but those tasked with keeping the public safe note the limitations of placards in making one of the deadliest stretches of highway in the county safer.

Public agencies have made numerous attempts in recent years to get drivers to be more cautious on the road. A grant to the California Highway Patrol to target drunken drivers appeared to show some success, but grant money recently ran out, and the highway remains deadly.

According to Caltrans and media reports, eight people, including two pedestrians, have died and 133 have been injured in collisions on the route this year.

Much of the highway is two lanes with nothing but paint separating oncoming vehicles on the sometimes open backcountry road where drivers are known to exceed the 55-mph speed limit.

The stretch of highway meanders through rural communities and hills speckled with boulders from El Cajon to Ramona. The written warnings are many: “Drive 55 on 67,” “Take Care Getting There” and “Arrive Alive, Don’t Drink and Drive”; speed limit postings with radar flash motorists’ speed; notices for a daytime headlight zone stretch from Poway to Ramona; and postings warn of aircraft patrol.

Since 2007, 16 fatal collisions and 24 deaths, including six pedestrians, have occurred, according to data provided by Caltrans that included most of 2010. The Union-Tribune reported two pedestrian deaths — in February and July — that were not yet in the report.

County Supervisor Dianne Jacob, whose district includes the highway, has urged regional agencies and the federal government for the past decade to widen the road.

“This is one of the most unsafe highways in our region,” Jacob said. The highway needs “the ultimate fix,” an expansion that would widen 15 miles of road to four lanes, from Lakeside to Ramona, she said. The project, part of the San Diego Association of Governments 2050 Regional Transportation Plan, could be years or even decades away.

Caltrans and the CHP tried to step up driver safety in 2007 with the “Take Care Getting There” educational campaign. In 2009, Caltrans undertook a $2.6 million project to install the electronic speed signs and widen “rumble strips” in the medians to alert drivers who drift into oncoming traffic.

The same year, CHP used a $264,000 state grant to increase enforcement on the highway, nearly doubling the amount of citations issued per day since 2007, according to data provided by the CHP.

Officers issued an average of 9.8 citations per day from 2003, the first year for which information was provided, to 2008. They increased that to 18.9 a day in 2009 and were averaging 15.9 a day in the first half of 2010. In 2009, there was one fatal collision and three deaths — one motorist and two pedestrians.

With the grant money exhausted, the CHP cannot dedicate the same attention to the highway, Pennings said. He suggested a simpler solution.

“If people drove the way they were supposed to drive we wouldn’t have any problems,” he said. “When there’s one person who drives irresponsibly or makes a mistake, that’s where we have an issue. That’s where enforcement comes into play.”